Today when someone says music, they think about streaming songs, buying CDs in the 90s, or going to a concert. Yet, none of this is universal, and it’s all part of a modern western machine. It’s standardization to the extreme, in order to commercialize and sell music.
Today, we can see this standardization has reached its end point. Everyone walks around with earbuds listening to the same standardized stuff. Even if you point this out, nobody cares. Music is becoming this amorphous blob of electronic beats, rhymes, and electric guitars. It’s all controlled by institutions, corporations, and elites.
People who say music is no longer controlled by corporations because of youtube & soundcloud is just swallowing the propaganda. The cheapest version of modern electronic music is getting a laptop, DAW, and midi controller, so right away you need to go through your internet service provider and electronics companies just to make music. Sure it’s relatively cheap, but it’s corporate at the core & part of the enslavement to electronics. Even with instruments, you’re going through an international corporation, so whether it’s a midi controller, microphone, or drums, you have to go through a large corporation. Even if you buy used gear, you’re using reverb.com (an etsy company), eBay, or Facebook Marketplace.
Singing and handmade instruments aren’t controlled. You don’t need to buy a DAW, laptop, or a machine made corporate instrument from a place like reverb.com to make music. Prior to European colonization, everyone had their own instruments. Other empires existed, so things like bells in Buddhist monasteries were a kind of imperial instrument of another country, but nothing is like the European invasion into the entire planet demanding everyone follow their system.